Casting Clinic #13

Process Improvement

On July 5th, the 13th edition of the Casting Clinic session cycle, dedicated to the theme "Process Improvement", was held at CINFU's facilities.

In order to make the session have an even greater participation, participants were asked to bring up issues and problems identified in their production processes so that Casting Clinic sessions are increasingly seem as the place for solution support and enlightenment.

This session was attended by three invited speakers, experts in different foundry fields. The first speaker - Professor Dr. Carlos Silva Ribeiro, Associate Professor in the Department of Metallurgy and Material Engineering, at FEUP - focused his presentation in consistency increase in the operation and production process of cast iron, reflected by the decrease of the refuse rate, increased plate yield and traceability. 3 technical axes were identified by him as necessary to work upon in order to achieve results:

Sand quality control;

Metallurgical bath quality control before pouring the mouldings, with the aid of predictive thermal analysis techniques;

Effective feeding and gating system and its piece separation during the shake-out.

Followed by Dr. Hélder Puga’s intervention, a researcher from the University of Minho, who presented an innovative treatment technique for modifying and sharpening aluminium alloys, which uses ultrasound. A probe is partially immersed in the liquid aluminium before being injected / cast. For a few seconds, the probe emits a vibration frequency that allows it to modify and refine the alloy and thus improve its metallurgical quality.

Engineer Iñigo Iturriza ended the cycle of speeches by introducing a Clariant innovation for smelters, which reduces the emissions of BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) that are generated in green sand casting processes when liquid metal is leaked. The emission reductions can reach 80%, and are due to the use of a special class of graphite with low profile of volatile generation.

Throughout the session, participants discussed and debated on some of the issues raised by speakers as well as issues related to their production processes.

The Casting Clinic sessions are increasingly dynamic and promise to move continuously into addressing problems detected by the industry and reflect solutions for a more promising and sustainable future.